An article in a parenting magazine I got yesterday included tips on winter sports: little kids should, of course, always wear helmets and only use sleds with approved steering devices.
Cue the curmudgeonly muttering: when-I-was-a-kid-clonking-your-head-while-spinning-in-a-garbage-lid-was-considered-part-of-the fun. (I'm pretty sure that sledding in the dark in a field with barbed wire fences would not meet modern safety rules either, but I at least was never stupid enough to try that.)
But that's trite. No, what I'm thinking is that the ducklings are far, far more likely to conk their heads badly walking in stocking feet on wood floors around solid furniture than they are to injure themselves spilling out in a snowdrift. In fact, at least one of them slips and hurts their head at least once a day.
If we're really concerned about safety, shouldn't kids be wearing these helmets every time they're out of bed?
6 comments:
f you want to be extra cautious, they should wear helmets even when they are in bed. Why run the risk of them falling out? =)
Or with bunk beds, bonking their heads on the top bunk. I've done that a few times, myself.
Helmets Are To Be Worn in the Kitchen.
Our floor is linoleum, and very slippery when water is spilled on it. Until we finally trained A&S to mop up their messes, we ALWAYS had water spills on the floor. Many bonks. Way more than the few times we've gone sledding.
-- SJ
There was an article in the Washington Post today where a resident described her neighborhood as the type of place where neighbors would call you to say, "Your child is riding a bike without his helmet."
Apparently, she thought this was a good thing. My immediate reaction was, "Keep your long nose out of my kid's business, please."
And why don't we adults wear helmets all the time, along with elbow, knee, and shin protectors? And pillows tied to our rear ends - just in case. Then AFTER we get out of bed, we really start adding the padding . . .
A few years back, Gary Trudeau actually removed the never-explained-never-removed helmet (football, army, whatever) from his character B.D. in the comic Doonesbury. B.D. explained that his mother had in fact been a safety freak and that he had gone through his *entire life* wearing head protection . . . starting with a cut out coffee can as a small child . . .
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